Malawi: President Chakwera Sabotaged As Legislator Slam Govt Over More Fertilizer Saga

24 November 2022

President Lazarus Chakwera is being sabotaged by officials including cabinet ministers who are either incompetent or pursuing personal agenda as further rottenness is revealed in the Affordable Input Program (AIP).

Chakwera was even misled by trusted investigators who deliberately withheld information about warnings sounded by intelligent technocrats at the Ministry of Agriculture that all deals pursued under the AIP failed simple due diligence but Ministers trashed all the red-lines.

Former Agriculture Minister Lobin Lowe, former Secretary to the President and Cabinet Zanga Zanga Chikhosi, former Principal Secretary Sandram Maweru pursued personal gain ahead of national interest.

Inexperienced Richard Chikunkhuzeni is said to have been brought in as Chief Executive Officer at Smallholder Fertilizer Revolving Fund to "mastermind" the deals with all dirty crystallising on his plate.

Sources say a team of ministers in the fertilizer task force have personally benefit at the expense the poor masses whom President Chakwera seek help.

Other quarters are blaming the scammers of deliberating by-passing the Attorney General Thabo Chakaka Nyirenda who later has to clean up the mess, like turning him into an international debt collector.

Meanwhile, Member of Parliament for Thyolo Central Ben Phiri has chastised the government for giving a US$170 million (K180 million) guarantee to a year-old UK based company to secure fertilizer for Smallholder Farmers Fertilizer Revolving Fund of Malawi (SFFRFM).

Speaking in parliament on Thursday, Phiri described as 'incompetent, corrupt and misguided' the way government is handling resources that belong to Malawians.

He accused the government of lacking seriousness in the way it has given a guarantee.

According to Phiri, it is surprising that a company which is not even one year old qualified for a US$170 million government guarantee.

"The way this whole thing was done, there is no two ways about it that there is someone behind it and I can say without fear of anything that there is someone behind it.

"If we are going to dig down we will find that there is something that is wrong", said Phiri.

In response to concerns that the company is not even one year old, Finance Minister Sosten Gwengwe said the guarantee was never given to the company but a person because he is eligible under the laws.

"The mistake that people make is that they assume that a guarantee should be given to a company but that's not what the public finance management Act says, a guarantee can be given to a person or a body corporate, and in this case our focus was not on the Auzano company but a person because he is eligible under the laws," said Gwengwe.

In the concerns raised by Ben Phiri, Auzano as a guaranteed financier would borrow the US$170 million on behalf of Malawi government which if he disappears Malawians would pay for it.

SFFRFM entered into the agreement with the UK based Auzano Capital Management, and Malawi cabinet approved the guarantee.

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